


The Fair Folk

by SolosOrca



Series: Witchcraft [2]
Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, Witch AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 20:19:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12778734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolosOrca/pseuds/SolosOrca
Summary: Winter has come and along with it a strange ritual that could change Tezuka and Ryoma's lives forever.





	The Fair Folk

**Author's Note:**

> So my halloween fic has somehow become a series, with more to come probably. We're still in pre-slash though, these idiots need to get it together....

The snow crunched under foot as Ryoma lead the horse down the path and to the village. The damn thing had thrown a shoe on one of the coldest days so far. He grumbled to himself as the horse, unaware of Ryoma’s annoyance with her, nuzzled his hair.

The fields and hedgerows around him looked beautiful, covered in a layer of soft white which glistened in the sun, as though someone had strewn diamonds across the landscape. Beautiful as it may be, it was still cold and Ryoma pulled up his scarf to keep the biting cold off his already red nose.

At least it wasn’t far to the village now, Ryoma could see it, nestled among the hills, smoke spiralling from the chimneys of every house. 

The snow on the roads in the village had been trampled down by the various people hurrying back and forth. Every now and then a snowman would appear, in an area of previously green space. Ryoma barely noticed them and tugged at the horse to get her to move quicker.

The smithey was in the centre of the village, next to the ancient oak tree on the green. Ryoma knocked and the door opened to reveal Kurobane, the blacksmith, smiling and covered in sweat. 

“My horse needs to be shod,” Ryoma said and he was let into the gloriously warm shed. 

“Haven’t see you for a while,” Bane said, taking the horse from Ryoma and leading her into place.

“I’ve been practicing magic,” Ryoma replied a little smugly. He would have shown it off, but all the iron in the place prevented that. 

“You’ll be as good as Tezuka soon, right?” Bane said, winking at him. Ryoma gave a noncommittal shrug. He certainly would be if Tezuka was a more active teacher instead of giving vague instruction most of which revolved around ‘practice’. 

Ryoma shed his layers of coats and cloaks and sat as close to the forge’s fire as he could bare to be, holding out his hands and letting the heat soak into them.

“How have you been?” Bane asked the horse, patting her neck and getting to work.

Bane had been instrumental in saving the horse from the knackers yard. She’d once belonged to an old man who lived a mile down the road and, when he had died, was going to be sent to slaughter. Bane had heard about her from a guy in the pub and, drunk and emotional over the fate of the horse, had bought her. The next morning, sober and with nowhere to keep the horse, he had offered her to Tezuka, knowing that she’d at least be able to live out her days in relative peace. 

“She can’t talk you know,” Ryoma muttered, not loud enough for Bane to hear over his work. 

The horse hadn’t taken to Tezuka, not allowing him anywhere near her, but, for some reason, had to Ryoma. A lot of unusual things happened to Ryoma, mostly involving animals being far friendlier to him than to even their own masters. Birds would land on him and eat out the palm of his hand with no desensitizing at all. Squirrels would run over his feet and, one the rare occasion a wolf ventured close to the cottage, would let Ryoma pat them.

Ryoma put it down to being surrounded by magic all the time. But it never happened to Tezuka. The only animals that would go near him were cats, which was ironic since Tezuka himself didn’t like them.

It could be a result of something that happened before he was found in the forest, but his amnesia was remaining as incurable as ever. Ryoma had come to terms with that though, in fact the idea that he may get his memories back and have to leave Tezuka and Seigaku was scarier than them remaining hidden away

He watched Bane work and drew the warmth from the fire up his arms and sent it down to his toes, which were still chilly. It was quite theraputic, watching Bane as he pulled off the old shoes and fitted the new. The horse was as good as gold throughout and, once the job had been done, Bane gave her a carrot to munch on.

“Thanks,” Ryoma said, taking back the reins. “I’ll see you around.”

“Don’t be a stranger,” Bane said, ruffling both Ryoma’s hair and the horses (forehead bit of hair) simultaneously. “You can come and warm up anytime you’re out and about”

Ryoma fought off the ruffling had and nodded and smiled.

He was walking past the inn when an upstairs window flew open and someone called out his name. Ryoma looked up, saw Fuji waving at him and sighed. He wasn’t going to get home for lunch at this rate. 

“What?” He snapped, giving Fuji a ‘I do not have time for this’ look, but Fuji had already jumped out the window and landed lightly on the compacted snow.

It had been a shock the first time Fuji had done that and not broke every bone in his leg (Oishi had apparently fainted after he’d first seen it), but Ryoma -and the rest of the village- had gotten used to it by now. 

“Tezuka told you not to do that,” Ryoma grumbled as Fuji, apparently immune to the cold in his thin shirt, waltzed over to him. 

Fuji gave him a look as if to say that he didn’t care what Tezuka thought on the subject and went to pat the horse, who instantly took fright and tugged herself out of Ryoma’s control, cantering away down the road.

“Thanks,” Ryoma said acidly. “Now I have to catch her.”

He didn’t. He knew the horse would just run home, but anything to get away from Fuji. He didn’t trust the elf, which was understandable, most people wouldn’t trust the creature who’d tied them up and cut them all over. Ryoma’s arms and legs were criss crossed with silvery scars that were never likely to disappear. He was never going to like him, no matter how Fuji tried to charm him like he had the rest of the village.

After making sure Ryoma was as healed as he was going to be, Tezuka had gone back out into the forest, found the elf, staggering around, holding his head and helped him. That was the thing about being a witch, no matter how much you despised someone or something, if they were in need you had to help them. It was your duty. Tezuka had given him a name (Fuji) and arranged for him to stay in the inn for a week whilst he recovered from whatever Tezuka’s curse had done to him.

For the way Tezuka had explained it, he’d sealed off all the areas of Fuji’s personality that made him want to torture and kill. But that was also a large part of his elvish identity and having that removed from him was likely to cause problems.

Except it hadn’t. Either that or Fuji was really good at hiding what he truly felt and had accepted his new way of life without any argument.

He had yet to find a place in the village beyond ‘that weird guy who lives at the inn’, but with his speed and strength he was bound to find something. Right now, he was content with helping Kawamura out in the inn and annoying Ryoma. 

“You’ll find her,” Fuji replied silkily, “I don’t know why she hates me.”

“She knows you’re an elf,” Ryoma said a bit more harshly than he should have been, but one of his scar was aching and he didn’t feel like being charitable. 

Fuji shrugged that off. “The human world looks so much like my own at the moment,” he said. “The snow is so beautiful.”

“And cold,” Ryoma added. “I hate it.”

“And you don’t have Tezuka to keep you warm,” Fuji teased. “Not that he’d be much use anyway.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, nothing,” Fuji said mysterious in a tone that Ryoma  _ hated _ . 

“Tell me!”

“It’s not for me to tell. Run along home.”

“You were the one who stopped  _ me _ !” Ryoma yelled after him as Fuji returned to the inn.

“It’s going to be cold tonight,” he called back. “Make sure to keep Tezuka’s bed warm.”

And then he was gone. Leaving Ryoma fuming in the street.

_ I hate him! _ Ryoma screamed inside his head as he stomped off, the warm from the forge long gone and an icy chill starting to bite at his nose, fingers and toes. He’d been hoping to ride the horse home, but that plan had been scuppered entirely. 

He kicked at the snow as he walked, wishing it was Fuji’s head. 

To his surprise, Tezuka was waiting for him at the forest edge, looking worried.

“The horse came home before you did,” he explained. “She looked frightened.”

“It was Fuji,” Ryoma replied, “he tried to pet her and she spooked.”

Tezuka nodded sagely. “Yes, animals tend to take fright around elves. They can see what humans can’t.”

“They’re sensible,” Ryoma muttered. 

“Yes, they are.”

The rest of the walk back to the cottage was in companionable silence, listening to the sounds of the winter forest. Ryoma wanted to bring up what Fuji had said, but felt to awkward to. Tezuka would want to know what they had been talking about and Ryoma would have to admit it was about Tezuka keeping Ryoma warm.

It nagged at him though. The idea that Fuji knew something about Tezuka that Ryoma didn’t. He wanted to know everything about the other witch and that wouldn’t happen unless they talked properly. 

“Fuji said something weird,” Ryoma started just as they reached the clearing where the cottage stood, dressed in a blanket of snow. Stood near the front door, kicking at the snow to get at the grass underneath, was the horse.

“I wouldn’t take anything he says seriously,” Tezuka replied. 

Ryoma weighed up his options, he could press on and no doubt send make Tezuka defensive and mad or he could remain silent and let it drop.

“It sounded like he knew something about you,” Ryoma said, “like he knew you.” He remembered back to their fight in the forest and the look of recognition on the elf’s face when he first saw Tezuka. Tezuka had never explained anything about that night.

Tezuka sighed. “He’s an elf. They trick people all the time.”

That was true, but Tezuka was being evasive. 

“Do you know him?” Ryoma asked as they walked through the front door and divested their coats. 

“I-” Tezuka started and then paused. “I did. A long time ago. Don’t ask me how-” he cut off Ryoma’s question. “I will tell you when it is time.”

“Why can’t you tell me now?”

“Ryoma,” Tezuka said sternly. “It is not that I don’t trust you, but I need time to think about it. The memories are scrambled and I am still putting them together.”

Ryoma nodded, satisfied. Tezuka trusted him. That was enough.

“Would you like rabbit for dinner?” he asked, changing the subject and Tezuka relaxed. 

“That would be very nice.”

* * *

 

The snow continued to fall over the next week. The heavy clouds rolled over the land, dusting it heavily. The forest was bleak and yet strangely beautiful, the stark leafless trees, their fingerlike branches grasping at the sky against the pure white snow and light blue sky. Animals were venturing closer to the cottage and wolves had been seen getting closer to the village.

One evening, Ryoma was out in the forest, searching for them. If they went to the village then there would be fighting and arrows and it would not be the wolves that won the fight. It was not something Tezuka would be able to do, not without scattering the pack in all directions. 

He found the pack in a gully, drinking from a small stream that trickled its way through the forest. They growled at first, ears flattening as Ryoma approached, but soon their ears prickled up and a sense of excitement grew around them.

“Hello,” Ryoma said softly, reaching out to the lead wolf who had lolloped up to him and scratching it behind its ears. “You shouldn’t be here.”

The wolf whined as if it had understood what Ryoma had said and was trying to plead its case. Ryoma pressed his forehead against the wolf’s and whispered ,“go back into the forest. You are in danger here.” He felt out into the wolf’s mind, letting the feeling of his words flow into it. 

“Go,” he said and the wolves turned tail and trotted back to the depths of the forest. Hopefully the snow would melt soon and life would become a little more easy for the creatures of the forest. He walked home in the light of the full moon. At least when he’d been hunting for the wolves he’d had something to distract himself from the cold. Right now he just had to deal with it.

Once back home, Ryoma went straight to bed, cuddling under his layers of blankets.

* * *

 

He dreamt of walking along a forest path, straight as an arrow but with his destination always shrouded in a glowing white mist. As he drew closer, the trees and flowers started to crystallize, sparkling in the sunlight filtering down through their transparent leaves.

He awoke feeling warm and light under the heavy piles of blankets and with Karupin curled up against his side.

Ryoma yawned and stretched, thinking over the dream. It hadn’t felt ominous, just… strange. He wrote it off as just a dream and pulled the blankets closer around him, dozing until Tezuka came to wake him.

Getting out of bed in the winter was The Worst, especially since he could see his breath condensating in front of him as he pulled on his warmest clothes. Downstairs wasn’t much better, but the fires were light so soon that would change. Ryoma shuffled over to the one in the kitchen and warmed his back against it whilst Tezuka made porridge.

“I found those wolves,” he told him. Tezuka had been asleep when Ryoma had returned. “I sent them back into the forest, but they’ll come back if they can’t find any food.”

Tezuka nodded grimly. Both of them could feel that this was only the beginning of what winter was going to throw at them.

“It’s midwinter today,” Tezuka said as if to break the gloomy silence between them.

“Yeah, I know. I was helping build the bonfire yesterday, remember?” Ryoma replied, grinning. 

The village always held a festival to celebrate midwinter. It had begun in the depths of time as a way to make the sun rise again and over time evolved into an excuse to build a big fire and celebrate. A bonfire was light in the middle of one of the common fields and meat was (theoretically) sacrificed to the gods by roasting it. Once roasted -and the spirit of the meat sent to the gods- it was eaten by the villagers. There was no sense in wasting good food in the middle of the hardest season.

Tezuka and Ryoma were not part of these quasi-religious practices, they were merely observers, making sure the ceremonies went as they should. And, once they were all completed, could relax and eat and drink with the rest.

Ryoma was looking forward to it, mostly due to the fire and free food. He wouldn’t describe much of winter with any kind of positivity, but this festival was the one exception. 

“Are you ready?” Ryoma asked.

“I am,” Tezuka replied, a twinkle in his eye. “I don’t have much to ready though.”

Tradition stated that the witch had to put a spell on the oak tree to make it come back to life in the spring. The spell was nonsense and Tezuka could bring the tree to life without much trouble if he really wanted to. But it was tradition.

“You’re doing incredibly powerful magic,” Ryoma replied as though he was truly impressed. “You can’t be careless.”

Tezuka chuckled, putting his hand on Tezuka’s shoulder. “Next year, you can do it.”

“As if they’d let me take your place.”

Tezuka’s lips twitched into a smile and his hand slid up Ryoma’s neck to cup his cheek. His hand was cold, but pleasant and Ryoma could feel his cheeks heat up as he met Tezuka’s eyes. “The villagers care about you as much as me.”

“I know,” Ryoma muttered, turning his eyes away. “I just couldn’t replace you.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“But-”

“I’d still be at your side,” Tezuka promised. “It’s complicated magic after all and you’re still an apprentice.”

Ryoma puffed out his cheeks in annoyance and Tezuka’s hand slipped from his face. 

“I’ve got to feed the animals,” Ryoma said.

Outside, the cold air cooled his burning skin. Stupid Tezuka, doing that out of nowhere! The kitchen wasn’t the place to do that kind of thing, especially when Ryoma had been snuggling up to Tezuka practically every evening as they sat in front of the fire together. Tezuka had had every opportunity and he’d chosen the morning in the freezing kitchen!

Annoyed and utterly embarrassed, Ryoma went about feeding all the animals as fast as possible so he could get back to the warmth of the fire.

He wished Tezuka remembered kissing him in the forest. He wished he wasn’t such a coward. Ryoma highly doubted Tezuka would reject him but there was still that terrifying chance that whatever had happened to Tezuka in the forest had put him out of his right mind.

Ryoma had been in so much pain at the time that he barely remembered more than a brush of lips. He’d like a re-run where he wasn’t clinging onto consciousness by a thread.

As he was walking back into the house, Tezuka was coming out.

“There’s something happening in the forest,” he explained. “I don’t know what, but something feels out of place.” Ryoma nodded. “I’ll be back before we have to be in the village.”

* * *

 

Whatever had arrived in the forest knew Tezuka was there and was hiding from him. That was the conclusion Tezuka came to. It couldn’t be anything else, the feeling he’d received from the forest -a feeling like the metallic bite of the first breath of fresh snow- had told him  _ something _ was out there. Something that should not be. 

And yet, he’d found  _ nothing _ .

No sign of anything out of place other than the feeling that was not going away. He’d always been good at finding the things that were out of place, it irked him that he couldn’t find this.

Of course, he had suspects as to what it might be, had ideas where they may be found. But no. It was as though nothing had happened at all in the forest.

He was late getting back to the cottage and Ryoma was gone -not doubt tired of waiting for him.

Tezuka quickly changed into his good cloak and non-battered pointed hat- he was going to be the centre of attention, he couldn’t show up in his work clothes! 

His ‘best hat’, as Ryoma mockingly called it, had a floppier brim and a little silver stars embroidered onto the fabric. It had cost Tezuka more than he’d ever admit to spending on a hat and came out on occasions where Tezuka had to look like he hadn’t just returned from running through a muddy forest.

It had started to snow heavily whilst Tezuka had been in the forest, covering all the footprints from that morning. Tezuka payed it no mind as he hurried to the village, still irked by his inability to find anything in the forest.

“You’re late,” Fuji said smugly, standing on a snowbank. Not in it, Tezuka noted, on it.

He could do that too, but it was far too showy. 

“I am aware,” Tezuka replied cooly.

“You’re cute little apprentice not with you?” Fuji asked.

Tezuka’s eyes flashed, something cold lodging between his ribs. “He should be here.”

“Well he’s not.” Fuji hopped down from the snow heap and onto the road. 

Tezuka sidestepped him and continued along the road to the village, Fuji following in his wake. Ryoma was good at appearing out of now

here. He’d slipped passed Tezuka more often than Tezuka would like to admit, surely he could do the same to Fuji.

The green and oak tree came into view, surrounded by the villagers, who cheered when Tezuka came into sight. 

“He’s not here,” Fuji said in his sing-song voice. 

Tezuka ignored him and walked over to the tree. He stood in front of it and raising his hands, palms forwards and pressed them against the cold, rough bark. Beneath his skin, he could feel the dormant tree, not dead, just waiting for the snow to melt and the weather to warm before it burst out into life. Aware of every eye on him, Tezuka closed his own, whispering the spell that had been passed down through generations of witches.

It meant and did absolutely nothing, but Tezuka felt himself connected to every other witch would had stood in his place repeating the same words. The power rushed through him, like a wave, generations of experiences and knowledge flooding through his brain before drawing back, down his legs and back into the ground. There were only snatches remaining in Tezuka’s head, flopping around like fish left behind by the sea before fading away to nothing. He dropped his arms and stepped back, releasing the breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding.

There was a ripple of applause throughout the gathered crowd and then they slowly started to wander away towards the field with the bonfire. Tezuka searched through their ranks for Ryoma, but the other man was nowhere to be seen.

“I told you he wasn’t here,” Fuji said smugly, sauntering over to Tezuka.

“You know where he is, don’t you?” Tezuka growled. 

“Not precisely. Don’t tell me your senses have dulled over the years?”

Tezuka glared at him and shut his eyes. The presence in the forest had gone, nothing left but a wisp of feeling. It hadn’t been an elf, Tezuka was sure on that.

“You came into this world through the stone circle on the moor?” Tezuka asked as Fuji watched a robin hopping through the nearby hedge.

“I did. You did too, I’m sure.”

He had, but Tezuka didn’t reply, just racked his brains for what that presence could have been. He couldn’t lose face in front of Fuji, not where Ryoma was concerned. 

Ryoma was always hard to keep track of -no doubt due to his mysterious appearance- but Tezuka could usually tell vaguely where he was. But now, there was nothing.

Next to him, Fuji was looking bored -all the songbirds he’d been watching having flown away. “I can tell you if you want.”

Tezuka turned and walked back the way he’d come. There had to be  _ something _ , some kind of clue back in the forest. Fuji trotted next to him, watching him as he’d watched the robin. Tezuka wished he wouldn’t, this would be far easier without the other elf judging him at every turn.

“That curse you put on me. It was put on you, wasn’t it?” Fuji asked as the reached the edge of the village and started up the road. “That’s why you couldn’t kill me.”

“There are more appropriate times to talk about that,” Tezuka replied stiffly. 

“I’ll help you find your precious little whitchling and you tell me what you did to me,” Fuji offered.

“Not now,” Tezuka snapped. He was not going to tell Fuji something he had yet to tell Ryoma. Fuji kept following him though, no doubt to watch how Tezuka struggled. 

Well, he wasn’t going to struggle! He was going to find Ryoma no matter what!

They turned a corner in the road and found Karupin sat in a snowdrift next to a thicket of brambles. The cat eyed them warily and then trotted up to Tezuka, mewling and rubbing against his leg.

Next to him, Fuji chuckled. “Who’s cat is that?”

“Ryoma’s,” Tezuka replied simple, kneeling and picking him up. “Where is he?” he asked softly, placing a hand on the cat’s forehead. Karupin mewled loudly and leaped out of Tezuka’s arms, leaping through the thick snow back to the brambles.

_ Pixies _ ? Tezuka thought. They lived in a world accessed through thickets of spikey plants. They never normally caused trouble. Unless….

How could he have been so stupid!?

“You can’t go through there,” Fuji said smugly. “If our curses are the same, you can’t travel between worlds.”

“I can’t travel back to  _ our _ world,” Tezuka clarified. “I’ve already done my year in the human world.” He waved an arm and his robes changed from black to shades of purple and blue. His cloak gained a fine fur collar and his face sharpened back to its elf-like features. 

“Impressive,” Fuji said vaguely. “Now what? The door’s closed.”

“It will open for me,” Tezuka said, his voice sounding silkier, like deep velvet. He held out his hand again, finding the door in the layers of the eather, grabbing the handle and pulling it open. He found the bronze crown in his other hand and placed it on his head. It fit perfectly and made Tezuka feel a little sick inside. But it had to be done this way, witch Tezuka was no match for elf lord Tezuka.

“You’d better come back,” Fuji said fiercely. “You can’t curse me and leave me here like this.”

Tezuka looked at him, at the fire in his eyes, hiding the fear behind. If Fuji could feel fear then he had changed -was redeemable. 

“I will return,” Tezuka promised.

Tezuka looked back at the brambles, at the shimmer in the air that indicated the way through. “Make sure the cat doesn’t follow,” he said and stepped forward.

There weren’t many ways to describe the feeling for stepping from one world to another. There wasn’t any falling down holes in subspace or (). One moment you were in one place and the next you were in another.  The world around Tezuka was as white with snow as the one he’d left, in a forest where everything was replaced by crystal. Crystal trees and flowers shimmered in the sun, eternal and never changing. 

He’d never really liked the pixie world, it was cold and hard. 

The path winded its way through the trees and Tezuka didn’t see a single living thing as he walked. As he got deeper, soft laughter started to filter through the trees followed by the twinkly music of the pixies. The cold air was chilling even Tezuka’s skin and he hoped Ryoma was okay, he’d never dealt well with the cold. 

The path ended at a clearing in the forest, filled with light and laughter. In the human world, pixies were little more than glowing balls, drifting through the air. But Tezuka was in their world now and had been shrunken down to their size. They looked like pinched elves with long fingers, noses and teeth. The teeth were particularly worrying, sharp and needlelike. As this was a special ceremony, they wore colour cloths, wrapped around their spindly bodies.

Tezuka had read about these ceremonies, but had never seen one in the flesh. Very few had. ‘Brides’ were chosen from another world and then chose their pixie ‘husband’ who would turn them into pixies and carry on their race with them. If he remembered correctly, the bride sat in the center of the feast and he had a horrible feeling he knew who this year’s bride would be. 

He was right.

In the centre of everything, sat on a crystal throne was Ryoma. His skin was deathly pale, dressed only in a thin white tunic. His eyes were closed and he wasn’t moving, as though he were asleep. 

_ Charmed _ Tezuka thought. Charmed into remaining docile and willing to chose a husband. 

A pixie floated over to Ryoma and draped a veil over him. The ceremony was about to begin.

Tezuka had one chance. He couldn’t run in and grab Ryoma, not without setting a whole forest of pixies on himself -a forest of sharp teeth that he couldn’t kill. No, he had to play by the rules of this ceremony.

The stepped forward out of the forest and into the light. “I put myself forward as a husband.” he said loudly and clearly. Pixies could understand human language, even if they couldn’t speak in anything but shrieks and whistles themselves.

All eyes were on Tezuka now, weighing him up. But there were rules. No potential husband could be attacked, no matter what their race. 

Tezuka’s heart hurt when Ryoma didn’t so much as twitch upon hearing his voice. There was no recognition there at all.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have dropped his human disguise, but a human would have been ripped apart. At least Pixies were scared of elves, scared enough to allow them to take part in their ceremonies.

Other pixies were now announcing their claim for Ryoma’s hand and Tezuka was relieved when Ryoma didn’t react to any of those either. It was Ryoma’s choice. He just hoped he was strong enough to overcome the charm and choose Tezuka.

Finally, all the potential husbands had announced themselves and they all made their way to stand around the throne. Tezuka was originally to Ryoma’s left, but with some glares he’d made his way around to stand close to being straight ahead of Ryoma. No one challenged him.

Ryoma’s eyes fluttered open. He took exhausted and cold and not quite there, like he’d just woken from a deep sleep. He shivered and looked around, confused and lost.

Tezuka reached out mentally to him. It was so much easier in this world where magic permeated everything than back in the human world. This was cheating and Tezuka didn’t care. He couldn’t let Ryoma go to anyone but him.

_ Come to me _ , he thought, gently pressing the feeling into Ryoma’s mind.  _ Come to me, Ryoma. _

Ryoma blinked, his eyes suddenly clearer, more of himself coming to the surface of his consciousness.

_ Come, _ Tezuka said before withdrawing. He couldn’t let Ryoma come back to normal and give away his cheating. 

Ryoma got up unsteadily, his bare feet sinking into the snow and stumbled forward a few steps before stopping, looking like he’d forgotten what he was supposed to be doing. And then, his eyes met Tezuka’s and all doubts Tezuka had had melted away. 

Ryoma stopped in front of him, still hazy but smiling. Tezuka plucked off the veil and replaced it with his cloak, wrapping it around his shoulders. He looked slightly ethereal, but Tezuka knew he was close to freezing to death.

“Tezuka?” Ryoma asked and Tezuka nodded before picking Ryoma up in his arms.

“We’re going home,” Tezuka replied. 

The pixies hissed as Tezuka carried Ryoma out of the clearing. The rules had been followed, but they were very unhappy about the results. Tezuka cast them an acidic look over his shoulder as he stepped into the forest and the backed down, none of them willing to take on an elf. 

Ryoma was shivering in his arms; the charm was wearing off now and Ryoma’s body was feeling the full effect of the cold. His lips were turning a purpley blue and his skin looked much less ethereal and more deathly.

Tezuka pushed down the anger as he hurried back to the crossing, he could go back and slaughter every single pixie in this forest, but that would not help Ryoma. 

Fuji was still waiting for them as Tezuka crossed back into the human world, sat on the fence opposite and disinterestedly watching Karupin cleaning himself.

“You’re alive,” he remarked and then turned his eyes on Ryoma. “Humans aren’t meant to be that colour.”

“I know!” Tezuka snapped, taking off down the road. Fuji shrugged and followed, interested to see what Tezuka would do next.

The bonfire was all that was in Tezuka’s mind. If he could somehow get Ryoma there before he died then he could do something. Elves were good at moving fast and Tezuka, for the first time in a long while, was grateful of his heritage. 

The village came into view and then seconds later, Tezuka arrived, skidding over the crushed snow and ice. He turned down the street that lead to the field and saw the burning glow of the fire. He was only vaguely aware of the crowd parting as he carried Ryoma to the blaze. Had he been paying attention, he’d have realised Fuji had taken a shortcut and was parting the villagers in front of him.

“What’s happened?” Someone -possibly Oishi, but Tezuka wasn’t paying attention- asked as Tezuka knelt in front of the fire and held out a hand to the radiant heat. Without another hand to spare, he pressed his forehead to Ryoma’s, a jolt of fear going through him when he felt Ryoma was colder than himself. He concentrated, pulling the heat in through his hand and channelling it through his body into Ryoma’s. He was slow at first, he didn’t know much about human biology, but he was sure dumping a huge amount of heat into Ryoma’s body would do him no good.

Slowly, colour started to appear in Ryoma’s face and the shivering started to disappear. Relief flooded through Tezuka as Ryoma’s eyes fluttered open.

“What happened?” he slurred, looking blearily around, not quite conscious enough to be embarrassed, although that would come. 

“You’re safe,” Tezuka assured him, the arm holding Ryoma pulling him close.

* * *

 

Kawamura gave them a room in the inn so Ryoma could warm up and rest properly before the walk to the cottage. After Ryoma had been poked and prodded by a very worried Oishi, Tezuka explained what had happened whilst he ate a bowl of hot soup.

“I don’t remember anything,” Ryoma sighed, “it’s just blurry. I was in the kitchen and then I was lying in your-” he blushed, “by the bonfire,” he corrected himself.

“You were put under an influence. To you, the pixies would appear as beautiful creatures and not threatening at all. Stronger men than you have been taken under their control, but few choose to return like you did.”

“What would have happened if I didn’t choose you?”

“You would have become a pixie. Eventually.”

A small smile tugged at Ryoma’s lips. “I’m glad I chose you.”

Tezuka smiled back. “As am I.”

Their little moment was ruined by Fuji barging in and telling Ryoma he’d technically married Tezuka.


End file.
